"I sent you an email earlier about the new vertex v1.5 firmware. I burned a CD, rebooted, flashed. I have a 3ghz xeon Mac Pro. (pre-2009 Mac Pro w/PATA optical drive I assume)
I'm now having big problems with my disk.
It started when I installed the new iPhone SDK (lots of small files I guess). I got laaaags (many seconds). After looking everywhere It really seemed that it came from the disk (and probably the new firmware). (maybe it's doing GC?) to make a long story short:
- reboot : many disk errors on the volume
- fix everything
- same write problems on the disk (20 mn to copy a 92 mb file)
- then disk unmounts itself
- I then try to reinstall firmware 1.41
- now the disk is gone (doesn't show up in disk utils, or anywhere else).
- can't patch back to 1.5 just to try, it can't see the device, and shows partition table errors while booting...
So I'm not 100% certain it comes from the new firmware, but it really looks like it.
I have a vertex ssd 120GB in a Mac Pro with OS X 10.6.2
(I asked he write back after talking w/OCZ support.-Mike)
No news from OCZ yet. The disk seems to be bricked, I think I'll rma it.
I tried booting with my windows 7 install and it doesn't see the device either... I'll tell you if I have any new infos.
-Nicolas"

Update - again I've not kept up with OCZ firmware updates but have noted here the requirement for Crucial M225 (also barefoot controller based) SSDs w/1711 firmware that a backflash to 1571 (w/drive wipe) was reqd before going to 1819 firmware. (And IIRC also noted something similar for OCZ owners on the 1.4x updates last fall.) Anyway a reply to the above noted this is also true for OCZ 1.5 firmware for those with 1.41 firmware SSDs:

"Saw this posting on re: lagging of OCZ SSD drives after 1.5 firmware updates.
Short version: you must NOT upgrade DIRECTLY to 1.5 from any firmware you are using with the OCZ drive UNLESS it's version (firmware) 1.4.
(v1.4 was the Trim Vertex firmware version - v1.41 was the GC firmware, based on posts last fall here on these updates.-Mike)
The proper sequencing is as follows:
Version 1275, then 1.10, then 1.3, then 1.4 then 1.5.
If you don't do this you will get the same problems (or others) that the original poster wrote about. (I'm talking from experience, trying to take a drive from 1.1 to 1.5 in a single upgrade and another from 1.3 to 1.5).
(I'd have thought an OCZ owner would have known this (from their postings on updates) but later comments said that was not made clear apparently.-Mike.)

Note: if you have not done the upgrade in the proper order, you WILL have to send the drive back to OCZ to get it replaced. There is NO publicly available method to backflash the firmware from 1.5 to any previous version. The only way to do it is via the RMA process. (OCZ to its credit has been extremely efficient in dealing with my drives, no hassles, no muss, just gave me the RMA # and processed the drives as soon as they arrived at their depot).
(His drive is bricked from the comments - but as regular readers know, owners of M225 SSDs have used the 1711->1571 backflasher to revert back to 1571 even with the 1811 firmware. Of course like anything, YMMV. And for bricked/not recognized SSDs, of course that is not an option.
And one later reply from an OCZ 120GB owner that updated from v1.3 to 1.5 said he also saw some performance issues afterwards but seems to have solved it by a reformat/repartition (saying the 120GB is listed as 128GB w/1.5 firmware). He suggested Nicolas try that but from the comments that's not possible as the SSD isn't even recognized. You can't reformat/repartition the drive if the OS/system doesn't even see it.-Mike)

One final note: you can NOT presently upgrade the firmware of an OCZ SSD drive with any of the Nehalem MacPros. (BootCD for updating doesn't work on the MacPros).
(name withheld by request)"

I'm guessing he's referring to the (commonly reported) issue with Optical drive support. (And if so, this isn't unique to OCZ - lots of posts in the past on this, including mine - where Mac Pro owner's Optical drives were not supported w/typical updater boot ISOs - long story I won't repeat again. MacBook Pro (nvidia chipset) owners seemed fine btw.)

Although I've not (yet) seen a major failure (as some have - suddenly drive not recognized in any machine - not just after a firmware update) I have been through some trials with my SSD (a Crucial 256GB, also barefoot controller based) as I mentioned in the past here. (Problems seen with firmware 1711 and 1816 - I updated it the day I posted a FYI on firmware 1916 release.) Since updating to 1916 I've only used it was an external drive though (for media files) - my Mac Pro has all bays full and I don't feel like swapping it back in the MBP again (which is running fine w/640GB HD with 10.6.2 and Bootcamp/Win7 partitions) - granted I do miss the snappy performance but don't miss the problems seen in the past w/earlier firmware.

And while on the subject, Wil wrote he's not seen any performance drop after 2 weeks of use with this 1916 firmware 128GB Crucial SSD in his (2006) MacBook. (Apparently the GC is working.)
If I were to buy an SSD today though, I'd look hard at the new Sandforce based models (although they're new to the market and I understand completely many will want to wait for longer-term use from many end users, not just reviews/benchmarks.)

"Adobe Illustrator "Unable to Set Maximum files to be opened"
Maybe one of your readers has a solution. A growing number of people are getting "Unable to set maximum files to be opened" and then Adobe illustrator crashes. It happens with both CS3 and CS4. The only known solution is to do an archive and install, but that's not only time-consuming it may cause other applications to fail.

Users afflicted with this problem have:

• uninstalled and reinstalled the entire CS suite (and its 1.1GB upgrade)
• repaired permissions
• deleted preferences
• performed the steps in "what to do when illustrator for Mac crashes" from Adobe, including the steps above and deleting fonts

Any suggestions your readers might have would be gratefully accepted. The Adobe Forums discussion is below; even if they don't have a solution, if others are having the same problem, perhaps Adobe will notice. Calls to Adobe's tech support have not been helpful. Thanks!
(Did this just suddenly happen recently? (As last week there were CS/CS2 issues seen after Acrobat 8.2 security update). I don't use Illustrator personally.-Mike
Update: On Feb 4th he sent a follow-up)
Okay, we figured this out. The problem is a conflict between Adobe Illustrator CS3/CS4 and SmartBoard tools version 10 (the new, Snow Leopard compatible version.)
SmartTools 10 installer places a file in /etc called "launchd.conf"
To remove /etc/launchd.conf
1.) Go to finder
2.) Go to the Go Menu at the top of the screen
3.) Scroll to "Go to Folder..." the second option from the bottom or press Command+shift+G all at the same time
4.) When the pop-up box comes up, type "/etc" (no quotes) and press he flashing "Go" button
5.) locate the "launchd.conf" file. I just dragged it into the trash, but if you want to edit it, open it in a text editor like BBedit or TextEdit. The entry that is causing the problem is the "limit maxfiles" line. If you remove that line and restart the problem will be fixed. If you remove the whole file, your SmartBoard preferences will be lost, apparently, but I didn't verify this. You need to be an admin to remove or edit the file.
6.) You must restart - simply dragging the file into the trash or removing the "limit maxfiles" line is not enough. Once you restart, your Illustrator should function again.
-Jason M."

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